


Marching Orders

by grav_ity



Series: Before and After [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-31
Updated: 2007-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/pseuds/grav_ity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Good Generals come from the most unlikely places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marching Orders

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I really didn’t plan on this. I’m having fun though! This time around it's House Elves.
> 
> Disclaimer: Still not mine.
> 
> Rating: Kid friendly,

**Before**

Harry looked around the kitchen. It was still surprising to see the brightly shining pots and the merrily steaming kettle and hear, ever so softly, Kreacher singing songs that Harry might go so far as to describe as cheerful. Dumbledore, as ever, had been right. When Kreacher was treated fairly and kindly, 12 Grimmauld Place wasn’t so bad after all.

It was Harry’s day to stay in. Ron and Hermione had left that morning looking for food and news leaving Harry alone to contemplate things. He’d tried cleaning, the old fallback for boredom at Grimmauld Place, but Kreacher had materialized so quickly his head spun and the elf had refused to let him do anything all day that required dusting or sweeping. Harry had retreated to the kitchen when Kreacher began to cook dinner seeking the elf’s company. He thought both of them had spent quite enough time alone.

“Would Master like some tea?” Kreacher appeared at his elbow almost before he’d finished sitting down.

“Only if you’ll have it with me, Kreacher.” Kreacher’s shocked look contained more happiness than it would have at this request a few weeks ago.

“Master likes his jokes, sir!” Kreacher poured a cup and headed back towards the stove.

“Is this a good time to talk, Kreacher?” Harry asked politely. “I mean, will I make you burn something?”

“Kreacher never burns things, sir. Kreacher can cook and talk at once.”

“Right then.” Harry took a sip of his tea, not entirely sure how to proceed.

“Kreacher?”

“Yes Master?”

“I don’t like giving you orders. It makes me uncomfortable and Hermione glares.”

“Young Miss has some strange ideas, sir.”

“She does, but at the same time, I’d rather ask you for something than make you do it.”

“Kreacher doesn’t mind, sir. Master is nicer than the others, except for Master Regelus.” Kreacher was now balancing several plates at once. Harry knew better than to try helping.

“I’m going to give you an order, Kreacher.” Harry said firmly.

Kreacher put the plates down and turned towards him, eyes slightly wide with the first hints of fear Harry had seen since the elf had told them the story of the locket.

“Yes, Master. That is Master’s right to do.”

Harry beckoned Kreacher over, and the elf came and stood on top of the bench. It was their compromise after weeks of negotiating. Kreacher wouldn’t sit, but when he was standing on the bench next to Harry they were almost at eye-level.

“Listen to me, Kreacher.” Harry said. The elf looked at him. “If something happens to Ron or Hermione or I, if someone tries to come into this house you don’t know...if the Death Eaters come, I want you to go to Hogwarts and hide there with Dobby and Winky.”

“Why Master?” The elf’s eyes glistened. “Why must Kreacher leave his home?”

“What we’re doing is very dangerous. The people we’re fighting don’t like elves at all.” Harry winced and screwed up his face: “They would treat you worse than Master Sirius did.”

Kreacher bounced off the bench and ran for the oven. He began pulling the pie he’d made for tea out, but was so startled, he dropped it on the floor. He looked back at the hot coils inside the oven.

“Kreacher, no!” Harry shouted before the elf could move closer. “It’s all right. We’ve all dropped things before.”

“Kreacher is sorry. Master surprised him.”

“I know Kreacher. I just want you to be safe.”

Only years of experience with Dobby prepared Harry for Kreacher’s teary and heartfelt response to that.

 **After**

The fires in the kitchen at Hogwarts had gone out for the first time in the history of the castle. Elf-lights shone dimly around the room as the five hundred house elves of Hogwarts huddled in terror as the building shook around them. Though they were in the basement, the walls still shook under the weight of the spells cast above them, and many of the pots and pans had already fallen from their hooks to the floor.

Near one of the smaller, though still cold, hearths, Winky sobbed into a bottle of Butterbeer that her Master had thrown her out and her Dobby had left her and what were they all to do now? Her hysterics spread slowly through the elves, most of them old enough to remember the last fight with the Dark Lord, until a high pitched wail rang out in concert around the kitchen.

“That is ENOUGH!” Kreacher said, clambering up on a table to make sure they could all see him and setting off a spark of green lights. He’d put on weight since arriving at Hogwarts. He wasn’t able to leave the kitchen lest Snape or the Carrows catch sight of him, and the lack of stair-climbing had improved his heath immensely. The Hogwarts elves all thought him a little strange. He and Dobby had been quite close before Dobby disappeared, and the two of them were known for rabble rousing. Still, his meager fireworks surprised them, and all the elves fell silent.

“My Master is up there. He is in danger and Kreacher is safe, because his Master told him to hide at Hogwarts.” The elves looked up at him with puzzled faces and Winky hiccoughed loudly in the silence. “Master wanted Kreacher to be safe. Master, a famous wizard, thought of Kreacher even while performing his great deeds.”

The elves whispered among themselves that he was mad, mad as Dobby, but they listened to him anyway. A loud crash brough the last bronze kettle crashing to the floor and they all jumped.

“Master doesn’t like to ask Kreacher to do things, so Kreacher is going to do this without asking.” Kreacher picked up a cleaver in one hand and a skillet in the other. “The bad wizards hates us because we is elves and not men. They think we is animals. They is wrong. We have magic too and we may be small, but we can still reach legs.”

Elves all around the kitchen began picking up all manner of knives and cutting tools. Dobby may have been mad, but they all believed his stories about how bad the Malfoys had been to him. None of them wanted Hogwarts under a rule any darker than it already was.

“Defend my Master, defender of elves!” Kreacher screeched and jumped off the table at a run. He was immediately caught up in a flood of elves, all running and screaming upwards to the castle. And to the fight.

\------

 **finis**

**Author's Note:**

> Gravity_Not_Included, July 31, 2007


End file.
